It’s a bit hard to reconcile the EA community’s stance going from “solving malaria with nets + help really sick/dying children” (good!) to the now arbitrary, anything-holds “AI, longtermism, whatever our benevolent leaders and their rich techbro friends get their hands on” (bad? and seemingly dis-humble? if that’s a word).
The “future fund” and more of the recent EA stuff screams techbro “visionary” ‘we are the chosen saviors of the world and for the future of the world’ sort of cultish EA movement? [0] I really don’t think this is the right group to even embark TBH—it’s extremely disingenuous and speed running to rid whatever humility this group had to begin with.
I almost got bought into this whole EA thing by reading your blog (and deeply admired the previously more humble “mosquito net/donate most of our income” EA posts) - but I am deeply concerned about how smart people have become unwitting PR for this seemingly techbro centered cult that has so many of these FTX-like frauds and “rich techbros” sucked into in their orbit :( Good luck and sorry for the rant—not aimed at you in particular but at this whole EA thing.
[0] https://www.jefftk.com/p/consider-applying-to-the-future-fel.
That does not sound like a good goal. It’s too ambiguous and lofty. I realize there are a lot of smart folks associated with the concept of EA but this goal ( good or not) seems more aligned with the White Savior complex with a great deal of humility lacking. We should at least be aware of our limitations: we lack the basic knowledge and tools to even predict let alone change the “world” in the next two years let alone fool ourselves into thinking that “we” (and I mean the self elected saviors in the EA group) are the right people to do it.
It was kinda cool to see the mosquito net era; but this new era of McAskill et al is frankly intellectually dishonest and disgusting almost like the imperial / colonial style. The ftx fuckery is an unrelated problem but it beautifully drills a giant hole into this whole long termism 80000 hours AI savior stuff. The private texts between him and Elon really explains how deep the connections are to basically twist the meaning of EA to push whatever power play/PR is needed.
Thanks for the pointers, I enjoy reading them even though I disagree with the premise. One important criticism is that “donating to experts and people on the ground” seems probably better than “let’s embed and try to be experts in things we have no business to be in”.
To close my rant here as a nobody: Mosquito nets and your wife’s inspiring work led me to think that “the previous generation EA” was worthwhile “world changing “ for the impact it had right now right here. That’s amazing work and I certainly believe that lost part was a great goal: thanks for that inspiration.